Teach them young…

 Eden makes the best Ramen. She spoils us with making dinner!

Also, her soft boil eggs are SO GOOD!

Spoiled

 When these two make us dinner, it is the absolute best!

When an Italian girl gets married, if she’s smart, she teaches her husband how to cook all the favorites then she sits back and watches the magic!

Viral Dumpling “Recipe”

 Eden and I had fun trying a Tik Tok recipe for Trader Joe’s dumplings in onion cups. They were so good and we had fun playing with the toppings! We will be making these again!

 

Our Valentines Seafood feast!

This last weekend, in honor of Valentine’s day, we had our annual King Crab dinner, however, there was absolutely NO king crab at any location near us, so we made lobster tails and they were SO good. The tradition of a seafood feast was in full force.

Ryder finishing up the artichokes:

Little miss was under the weather, but would not miss this tradition…

I made chocolate cake to close out the night:

It is always such a highlight for our family!

I love these people SO much and I love traditions like these that create memories for the four of us each year!

spoiled…

Before we headed to Mammoth, we’d had some  big, full weeks, so Kit decided to make Eden and I a fancy pasta dinner… We are the luckiest!

trying new things…

 Eden and I tried a new-to-us food item at Trader Joe’s and we LOVED it!!! Eden headed up dinner and she killed it! 

We can’t wait to try this when the boys get home!

in a jam…

My family gave me a fig tree a few years ago. Every year it gives us SO much fruit! This week I decided to try to make fig jam an and it turned out so good!

3 lbs figs (ends cut off and then quartered)

1/3 cup orange or lemon juice

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla 

1. Combine figs and sugar off the heat. Let sit for 30 minutes.

2. Combine all ingredients over medium heat. Once it starts to boil, lower heat and stir. 

3.Allow it to cook and stir from 45-1 hour. Once thickened, either use an immersion blender or pour ingredients into blender and blend until smooth to what consistency you choose. 

4. Place in jar and refrigerate for up to 3 weeks. 

College days and reminiscing…

 In college, Kit’s room mate, best friend, best man in our wedding played basketball for our university. His mom would make chicken enchilada casserole FOR THE ENTIRE TEAM in the RV that they would travel in. I decided to pull out the recipe and my family LOVED it!

It was an absolute blast from the past and it was so fun to reminisce with my. family over it…

Happy {early} birthday to Kit!

 We had been given a bbq several years ago and it finally died. So I got to partner with our parents to surprise Kit with this Blackstone for an early birthday present!

My guys put it together:

In the first 36 hours that he had it, he made a breakfast of pancakes and bacon, and smash burgers for dinner! We are SO excited for all the meals that this man and his flat top grill will make…

This weekend is my birthday, and I’m excited to low-key celebrate!

feeding my crew…

We spend lots of time figuring out what to make for dinner. With practice schedules, we either eat at 430p or 9p… Here are some  favorite things I’ve been making recently that seem to fit the time frame… It’s silly how meal planning and budgeting, grocery shopping, and cooking seem to take lots of my brain power these days… But also, yay for summer days!

Blts:

El Dorado Casserole, a recipe from my childhood: 

 

Pasta salad with feta and balsamic glaze and grilled chicken:

Elk tacos:

turkey boats with peanut sauce and rice:

How grateful I am for God’s provision to give my sweet family full bellies. It’s an Italian mother’s dream.

❤️❤️❤️

post Easter traditions..,

 The week after Easter, our tradition is to make the egg salad sandwiches that we used to eat in our college days. In those days they called it squaw bread but now it’s called prairie bread. We felt so silly when we were first trying to remake these and NO ONE knew what we what bread we were talking about… Anyway…   

By taste, it’s a combo of mayo, mustard, salt, pepper, celery and we had the hot and sweet jalapeños from Trader Joe’s as a topping. It’s a favorite.